2003 BRC Touring Car Championship 2nd Leg

Anton sweeps both races

In the 3rd and 4th rounds of the BRC Touring Car Championship, Carlos Anton took pole position for the N1 division with a 1:48.671 laptime, Ferdie Ong took the second grid spot, while Philip Alvendia settled for third grid spot. For Division 3, Erick Tanael took top division grid order, followed by Oscar Aguilar and Alex Padua.

At the start, it was Carlos Anton of Red Horse/MP Turbo who led the way through turn one never looking back. Behind him was short battle for 2nd between Ferdie Ong of Rota/H&R and Mato Tan of Matonetics. Tan would later be overtaken by Philip Alvendia of A3 Motorsports by lap 5. Shortly after, Dominic Bon blows his engine on the 7th lap ending his race early.

Shortly after being passed by Alvendia, Tan found himself slowly dropping down the order. "I was having trouble with my brakes, they were really vibrating a lot and not stopping my car," said Tan after the race. Rey Reyes of AutoKlasse/Speedwelle made a slow climb up the order overtaking Ben Chan and then Tan. Tan was also overtaken as he was slowing his pace further by Chan.

It was more of a parade for the Division 3 class as the cars were well spaced and didn't see much action except for Oscar Aguilar of Havoline Racing chasing Erick Tanael of Intelco Racing. But on the 7th lap, Aguilar finds himself retiring early. Tanael finished with a walk in the park after Aguilar's retirement, while Alex Padua of MP Turbo came more than 12 seconds behind in second. Johnny Sambo of MP-Turbo/Pampanga Racing rounded up the top three finishers. Tanael was later declared DQ for a technical rule infraction.

In the late afternoon round 4, the clouds continued to threaten the race. But a firey hot Carlos Anton notwithstanding the weather conditions continued to scorch the track with a blazing hot performance. Coming as a surpise for round 3 second placer Ferdie Ong was Mato Tan who made a very good start crediting his drag racing experience. Tan dived in on Ong to take 2nd position entering turn two on the first lap. Tan unfortunately went too hot into the Yamaha turn letting Ong close in and later position for an overtaking maneuver.

Alvendia found himself closing on Tan and eventually taking him on the last turn on lap 4. Behind the action in front was a battle between Rey Reyes and Ben Chan who were having a close duel. But Reyes would pull away from Chan. Meanwhile in front of them, Tan again continued to slow down his pace, again due to brake problems. "I was still having problems with the brakes, we later found it to be the brake pads," said Tan.

In lap 8, Ong and Alvendia would find themselves in a slight tussle going into the Bryan's turn. Ong would find himself without track space and goes out on the grass luckily recovering with a striaght line out avoiding a spin. "I ran out of space while we were exiting the turn taking the same line. Luckily I got control of the car and didn't spin out," said Ong. Ong unfortunately got disqualified for disregarding the black penalty flag for a jump start.

Reyes suddenly slowed down his pace and had a not so good sound in his engine nearing the last 4 laps of the race, allowing Chan to close in to a second which later ended as halved. Unfortunately for Chan, there was not enough time for him to get ahead of Reyes.

In the front of the order, Anton started to slow his pace down approaching the end of the race. "Something was starting to go wrong, my brakes weren't working. My car wasn't stopping, fortunately the race was almost over," said Anton.

Meanwhile in Division 3, it was once again Tanael who led throughout the race. It was more of the same story except for Aguilar not being able to join the race. Having a nightmare of a race weekend was Mike Francisco who continually had problems with his car and went into the pits several times due to a lose spark plug cable. Tanael would again be disqualified for a technical rule infraction and in addition, his car weight 10kg under the allowed weight.

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